The soldiers proceeded to break down the picket fence, and to pitch it into the house for kindling. They refused to let anything be taken out of the house, being determined to burn up the furniture, clothing, bedding, provisions, and everything else connected with it. All things being now ready, the house was set on fire within, and the flames spread rapidly from room to room, then through the upper floor, and finally out through the roof. The house, with all the outer building was soon wrapped in a sheet of fire. My little brother Henry and an orphan boy about fourteen years of age, whom my mother had hired to assist Henry in cultivating the farm, were present at the conflagration and stood looking on in mute astonishment. Esroger ordered brother Henry to leave, but whether he knew it was their intention to shoot him after getting him a short distance from the house, as was their custom, it is impossible for me to say. Probably feeling an inward consciousness of never having committed an act to which they could take exceptions, he did not think that they would persist in making him go; so he remained and silently gazed at the burning house, which was the only home he had ever known. When ordered again to leave, he seemed to be stupefied with wonder at the enormity of the scene before him. Franklin Murphy being present told him it was best to leave; so he mounted his horse and started, but before he got two hundred yards from the house, he was shot and he dropped dead from the horse. Thus perished the poor innocent boy, who could not be induced to believe that the men were base enough to kill him, innocent and inoffensive as he was. But alas! how greatly was he mistaken in them! They next burned the large frame barn, also the different cribs and stables on the premises; then taking the orphan boy as a prisoner they left. Some neighbors, a few days afterwards found the body of my little brother and buried him. This was the crowning act of Federal barbarity toward me and the Hildebrand family, instigated by the low cunning of the infamous Vigilance mob. I make no apology to mankind for my acts of retaliation; I make no whining appeal to the world for sympathy. I sought revenge and I found it; the key of hell was not suffered to rust in the lock while I was on the war path. I pity the poor miserable, sniveling creature who would tamely have submitted to it all. Such a man would be so low in the scale of human conception; so far beneath the lowest grade of humanity, that the head even of an Indian would grow dizzy in looking down upon him. CHAPTER IX. Trip with Burlap and Cato.—Killed a Spy near Bloomfield.—Visits his Mother on Dry Creek.—Interview with his Uncle.—Sees the burning of the homestead at a distance.